Check out his article at:

Hutchison’s Blog

“Re-Entry when it comes to Christian Missions is defined as:

Re-Entry – The process of transitioning from short-term or long-term missions to life at home.

Part of the last week of the YWAM Discipleship Training School is usually spent talking about re-entry. It can be quite a shock for people coming home to their friends, family, church, job and / or school. Even after only spending 6-months away on the YWAM DTS so much can happen, and so many things experienced, that coming back to where you left from can be a big challenge.

Because we were never actually leaving YWAM we did not prepare ourselves for “re-entry”.

I guess that we should have known better if we had really looked at our situation. We were leaving a close knit YWAM community that we had grown with for the last 11-years. Everyday I was in the office working with missions minded people, passionate to do everything they could to further the spread of God’s Word and Truth. A few times a week we were at the YWAM Centre for a meal or event, and half of our friends were also part of YWAM in Townsville.

Coming here we were in a way coming “home” for me, even though I had been gone for the last eleven years. I didn’t really think of it as “coming home”, it felt more like “leaving home”, but Calgary is where a lot of my old friends are, my family is all here and my home church is here in Calgary as well. I think that the best way to describe it would be that I was coming back to where I grew up, rather than coming “home”.
Experiencing Re-Entry

We have found ourselves experiencing our own sort of re-entry as we have come here to Calgary.

Here are some points that I have taken from this article about re-entry:
Stages of Re-Entry:

1. Initial Euphoria
2. Irritability and Hostility
3. Gradual Adjustment
4. Adaptation

This article also has some really good points about re-entry:

1. You have changed – I’ve been gone for 11 years. When I left I was 21, very new in my Christian faith, single with no responsibilities and no clear direction for my life. Now I’m 32, been involved in full-time ministry for over a decade, married with two kids and I feel that I have a relatively clear calling and direction on my life.
2. Your friends and family have changed – Friends have moved, married, had kids, gotten jobs, made new friends and changed, a lot. Family has been through similar changes, even though at the moment both of my sisters are living at home with my parent’s, which still the same as when I left.
3. Your church has changed – Most of the people of my age that were at our home church here in Calgary have moved to other churches in the years that we have been gone. There are new people, and a few old friends, but the face of the church has changed dramatically in the past eleven years. The church also went through a change in the senior pastor and youth pastor who originally sent me out to YWAM, which would obviously bring about quite a few changes.
4. Your culture has changed – I am amazed at how much Calgary has changed since I left. The population since I left in 1998 has increased by about 20% to over 1 million people. The roads are busier, people a lot more rushed and a lot less polite. Even Tamara has noticed how much more rude people have gotten here since her first visit after we were married in 2001. Calgary has a much more cosmopolitan feel to it (cosmopolitan being defined as being made up of diverse peoples, showing cultural diversity and being more international in scope).

Because we were changing YWAM locations we didn’t expect to experience everything associated with re-entry (as well as culture shock, but I will write about that in another article). Part of why we feel we are experiencing it is because of the substantial difference between the YWAM community that we left in Australia and the YWAM community here in Calgary.

Another thing is that most of our friends in Australia were also involved in missions, but here in Calgary most of our friends are involved in main stream jobs. This brings with it a different way of looking at things, and it’s taking a lot for Tamara and I get to used to it. Just the other day I was sitting around a table with some guys as they were talking about finances and their jobs where they were earning two to three times what I do. I found it a bit of a challenge to know how to engage in that conversation. (Nothing wrong with a main stream job at all if that’s where God’s got you. He has a different plan for everyone of us, we just need to figure out what it is.)

I guess that it would have been nice to have been somehow equipped better for what we were walking into, but who knew eh?

Right now we are just struggling through it, hoping that the light we see in this tunnel is the end of the tunnel, and not the oncoming train …”

-Bill Hutchison

These past few days I’ve come to realize, I am a YWAMer. Everything about this missions organization excites me, makes me smile, my heart pump, tears well up and I can just throw my hands in the air and say “God, you are SO good.”

The YWAM University of the Nations campus is absolutely amazing. It’s the largest YWAM base in the world, over 800 people training, living, teaching here. I sat at lunch with four different nationalities, the Canadian and I having a conversation but she’s periodically laughing at the Korean jokes next to her: she’s bilingual. I had a hard time understanding the Native Hawaiian accent, just smiled and nodded my head. I’ve met a young lady from Kosovo—she doesn’t use Facebook because at home there would be serious consequences if her community knew what she was doing.

If you walk around campus there are so many buildings for training. There’s even a fish farm, pig farm and garden where people learn how to cultivate, grow and farm these things so when they go to Cambodia, Africa, China, etc, they’re able to teach the locals how to survive. “Give a man a fish he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish he will never go hungry.” At worship, the entire campus attends—over 800 people—singing and worshiping our Father. Does it make the rest of the Big Island tremble in awe? Can they hear our lovesick voices challenging the waves?

At the heart of it all, there is one purpose. The Koreans learning English, the skaters wearing too many clothes in the heat, they guy with the tattoos leading an intense prayer session, the Russian girl spooning out stew in the lunch line, the 4 year old boy raising his hands in worship to the beat of a drum, the middle-age couple who sold everything to come and re-find God….there is only one reason to be here. We are fortunate to be in Hawaii, but really, it’s only a lava rock with a grocery store, a Ross clothing store and Taco Bell is the only reasonable tourist restaurant. No real beaches nearby for the majority who walk as their transportation, just cliff faces. You have to go to the tourist island to do all that.

We are God followers. We are God breathers, God lovers. We want the rest of the world to understand the abounding love that God IS. We love Him. We desire Him. We want others to be ruined for the ordinary. We are often un-polished, mis-understood, sometimes just weird, followers of our one true love. We are lovesick.

We are YWAMers.

And we like it.

One of our main objectives was to raise the funds we need for the course as well as pay off debt we have from the past few years. Our departure date came upon us very quickly and we had not raised all the funds we needed for our time in Montana, nor had we paid off our debt. We realized that by going to Montana we would just be adding to our debt each month bit by bit. That did not seem very wise or responsible to us.

So we spent some time praying and seeking counsel. Our prayer was that God would clearly guide us. We wanted to be where He wanted us, and we wanted to be responsible. Over the next couple of days, God again proved Himself faithful to us by speaking to us and leading us.

We are not going to do the School of Biblical Studies this year. There is disappointment because we had planned on doing the course for 15 months, but we have a peace and excitement in our hearts because God has been guiding us. We will take this year and work to pay off our debt and raise the necessary monthly support for YWAM. An example of how we have seen God moving in our lives during this process is that I (Josiah) got an incredible job offer out of the blue. It’s a really good opportunity to work for a great company. I will be able to learn lot, and it will create the income we need to meet our monthly goals. Crissa has also got an awesome job opportunity. She will be working as a secretary at Essential Elements, a counseling practice that her Mom works in. She will also be continuing to work at Ted’s Mexican Restaurant every so often.

When we came back in December we did not have much of a financial plan in place as we transitioned. Now we have a clear and realistic plan to meet our goals. We hate it took us so long to get our heads wrapped around it but are thankful we’re getting there. We will also use this time to build new relationships and continue to invest in current ones. (Please pray for Crissa’s grandfather who was diagnosed with esophageal cancer June 28 and has finished radiation but still in chemotherapy. We are very close with her grandparents and help out frequently, being with them is really strengthening relationships and offering a lot of “God-talk.” Please pray for the whole family).

Our goals are within a year’s reach; we really want to attend the School of Biblical Studies in Montana in September 2010. We just want to be in the middle of what God wants us to do, really.

God is in control. If you are willing to give everything to Him, He will guide you. He is Faithful!

We wanted to communicate again how thankful we are for your prayers, support, and friendship. We will update you throughout the next year on what God is doing in and through us.
Our plan is to do the course next year. We’re sorry this is so delayed; we’ve had quite a few life changes in the month of September. We love everyone very much. Love to hear from you.

The Ritners

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